Citi $60 Annual Fee Targets Low Volume Chargers
February 22nd, 2010 by Kenneth Long
Citibank is implementing an annual fee to certain accounts that do not carry a high volume of charges. The goal is to offset some of the lost revenues due to recent credit card legislation.
Which Accounts are Targeted?
If you charge more than $200 a month to your Citi card, then you likely will be spared this $60 annual fee. According to Citi, all of the letters were mailed out and affected cardholders have already received notification.
Accounts that are used less frequently and fall well below the $2,400 annual threshold are likely to see the fee. Citi did provide affected cardholders with the ability to reverse this fee:
However, because we value you as a customer, we wanted to give you an opportunity to have the annual fee credited back to your account.
Decisions to reverse the fee reportedly depend on the customer demonstrating that they do indeed charge close to that $2,400 annual threshold. Otherwise, it is likely that many of these requests will be refused.
The first annual fees are set to be charged on April 1, 2010. It is worth stating that this is not an April Fools joke!
If you want to opt out, the deadline is March 31, 2010. Here is the contact information:
Call Citi at 1-866-915-9425. If you choose to write them, include your name, address and account number in the letter:
Customer Service Center P.O. Box 6218 Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57117-6218This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 11:47 am and is filed under Credit Cards, Credit Cards: Citibank. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I’ve used the citibank card for over 25 years, and also received the annual fee notice; never missed a payment due date, and always paid billing in full. I haven’t used the card for a while now because I was tired of receiving the bill in the mail three days before the due date – don’t know if they still try that gambit.
When I called to cancel the account, the Indian fellow was somewhat rude – perhaps he was tired of getting calls to cancel accounts. I was promised a verification letter within 5 to 7 days; I still have not received the letter after 3 weeks. So, I mailed a letter to cancel the account (with proof of delivery from USPS). I pretty much don’t trust them.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Hey Moby – I’m right there with you. I’m 46 and I’ve had a Citicard since I was 21, so 25 years. I haven’t been using it much, so I’m not important to Citicard, despite my long, long history. I canceled it today and told them I didn’t want to spend $2400 a year just to not lose $60 when I can use my Discover card and MAKE $60 (at 2% cash back.) They couldn’t argue with that. The woman was polite and so was I, but it’s disgusting that they didn’t even try to keep my business. I also have always paid my bill in full and have a credit score of over 800. Maybe not now, since I’ve canceled this card with a long history. Stupid, stupid Citibank. I hope they fail.